Interview with Playwright Fernanda Coppel
We discussed King Liz, Fernanda Coppel’s new play at Second Stage Uptown, this week on the podcast. After that I had the great pleasure to sit down with Coppel and talk about King Liz, Chimichangas and Zoloft (her first New York production), the mentors who have supported her in her career, and her eye-opening experiences as a Latina woman working in theater, television, and film.
We talk about the uphill battle facing playwrights of color to get work made, to convince theaters to program their work on main stages, and to get critics to thoughtfully engage with that work. Coppel gives a shout out to Diep Tran’s recent article in American Theatre magazine, 4 Ways Theatre Critics Can Be Less Racist.
She also talks about writing characters outside her race and the challenges she has set for herself with this new play.
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Photo by Paul Gregory Schlott